The present invention relates to a plan for disassembling a recyclable product, a plan for producing the recyclable product and a plan for procuring parts and materials for the manufacture of the recyclable product. More specifically, the present invention relates to a plan to break up a collected, recyclable product according to a production plan, a production plan using parts and materials obtained from the disassembly, and a plan to procure parts and materials for the production.
With a public concern over environmental problems growing year by year, environmentally aware manufacturing companies are building a system that, rather than disposing of used products, collects and recycles them to reduce an environmental burden. As for the recycling of a used product, a method has been proposed which involves attaching information to the product, reading the information attached to the product, referencing a database on recycle information prepared in advance and creating a recycling procedure for that product.
A system has also been proposed which determines the quantities of recyclable products, parts and materials by checking information on the quantity of collected, used products and on whether recyclable parts are mounted in the collected, used products. This system can incorporate additional information on inspection of the collected parts and thereby improve an accuracy with which to determine the quantities of recyclable products, parts and materials.
Of these proposed method and system, the former is an invention that simply determines a recycling procedure for each product. The latter checks the information on the collected products to determine the quantities of recyclable parts and materials and create a production plan. None of these prior arts considers recycling the collected, used products according the requirements of the production plan. That is, they do not determine when or to which stage the collected, used products are to be broken up. There is no feedback from the production plan to the disassembling plan and it is assumed that the collected products are to be broken up completely.
In terms of minimizing an environmental burden during the recycling process, it is important to recycle as many parts of the collected, used products as possible and to recycle intermediate components at as high an integration level as possible without performing unnecessary dismantling works.